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Thursday, 13 December 2012

Donatello (1386 -1466 ), Italian Sculptor

b. c. 1386
d. December 13, 1466

Italian artist and sculptor from Florence, and the most inventive, prolific sculptor of the early Renaissance. Donatello was both technically versatile and adept at powerfully expressive effects. His most famous work is his bronze David, the first free-standing nude statue known to have been produced since ancient times, but his varied oeuvre includes other figures of beautiful male youths imbued with homoerotic sensuality.

Some have perceived the David as having homo-erotic qualities, and have argued that this reflected the artist's own orientation. Yet, details of Donatello's relationships remain speculative. The historian Paul Strathern makes the claim that Donatello made no secret of his homosexuality, and that his behaviour was tolerated by his friends.

Evidence about Donatello's sexuality comes from the sculptures themselves and from anecdotes collected around 1480, sometimes attributed to Poliziano. Seven of these anecdotes concern Donatello, who was renowned for a sharp wit and called "very tricky (intricato)" by the Duke of Mantua.

Three anecdotes eroticize Donatello's relations with apprentices. He hired especially beautiful boys, and "stained" them so that no one else would find them pleasing; when one assistant left after a quarrel, they made up by "laughing" at each other, a slang term for sex. Two of these anecdotes were omitted from some sixteenth-century editions, and the one on laughter was glossed as "licenzioso."

Evidence about Donatello's sexuality comes from the sculptures themselves and from anecdotes collected around 1480, sometimes attributed to Poliziano. Seven of these anecdotes concern Donatello, who was renowned for a sharp wit and called "very tricky (intricato)" by the Duke of Mantua.

Other than the bronze David, other works with an homoerotic streak include Atys/Amorino (ca 1440), a laughing boy faun with exposed genitals, while clothed youths with a sensual appeal include the marble David (1408-1416), St. George (ca 1415-1417), and St. Louis of Toulouse (ca 1418-1422). In the mid-sixteenth century, the Florentine poet Lasca praised the St. George as an ideal substitute for a living boyfriend, providing constant amorous pleasure to his gaze.